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Anthropic has appointed Vas Narasimhan, CEO of Novartis, to its board of directors, strengthening its focus on bringing life sciences expertise into the governance of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
“Vas brings something rare to our board,” said Daniela Amodei, cofounder and president of Anthropic. “He has spent his career doing what we are trying to do with AI, taking powerful, complex technology and getting it to people safely at scale.”
The Indian-origin executive, Narasimhan, joins Anthropic’s board, which includes Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, Yasmin Razavi, Jay Kreps, Reed Hastings, and Chris Liddell.
The appointment was made by Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust, an independent governance body. With Narasimhan joining, Trust-appointed directors now hold a majority on the board, the company said in a blog post.
Narasimhan brings deep experience at the intersection of medicine, regulation, and global health. As the chief executive of Novartis, he has overseen the development and approval of more than 35 novel medicines. Prior to this, he did public health work on HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis programmes across India, Africa, and South America.
Narasimhan is also a member of the US National Academy of Medicine and the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on academic boards at the University of Chicago and Harvard Medical School. He previously chaired the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), where he remains on the board of directors.
Neil Shah, chair of the Long-Term Benefit Trust, said Narasimhan’s appointment reflects the governance model’s intent to bring long-term scientific and ethical stewardship into core decision-making.
Daniela Amodei added that his experience operating within highly regulated pharmaceutical systems aligns with Anthropic’s emphasis on safety, deployment discipline, and controlled release of advanced models.
Founded as a public-benefit corporation, Anthropic’s governance structure, anchored by the Long-Term Benefit Trust, is designed to insulate key decisions as it scales its frontier AI systems.
The appointment comes as AI companies increasingly court domain experts from regulated industries such as healthcare, finance, and defense to guide the deployment of high-impact systems, particularly as frontier models move closer to real-world scientific and clinical applications.
Narasimhan said AI is already reshaping biomedical research and drug discovery. “In healthcare, AI is accelerating solutions to some of the hardest scientific challenges from understanding disease biology to designing better medicines,” he said. “Anthropic is setting a standard for how AI should be developed to benefit humanity.”
The development comes a week after the San Francisco-based AI major appointed Amlan Mohanty to lead its policy initiatives in India.
In January, Anthropic appointed Irina Ghose — former MD of Microsoft India — as its managing director for India.
“Vas brings something rare to our board,” said Daniela Amodei, cofounder and president of Anthropic. “He has spent his career doing what we are trying to do with AI, taking powerful, complex technology and getting it to people safely at scale.”
The Indian-origin executive, Narasimhan, joins Anthropic’s board, which includes Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, Yasmin Razavi, Jay Kreps, Reed Hastings, and Chris Liddell.
The appointment was made by Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust, an independent governance body. With Narasimhan joining, Trust-appointed directors now hold a majority on the board, the company said in a blog post.
Narasimhan brings deep experience at the intersection of medicine, regulation, and global health. As the chief executive of Novartis, he has overseen the development and approval of more than 35 novel medicines. Prior to this, he did public health work on HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis programmes across India, Africa, and South America.
Narasimhan is also a member of the US National Academy of Medicine and the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on academic boards at the University of Chicago and Harvard Medical School. He previously chaired the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), where he remains on the board of directors.
Neil Shah, chair of the Long-Term Benefit Trust, said Narasimhan’s appointment reflects the governance model’s intent to bring long-term scientific and ethical stewardship into core decision-making.
Daniela Amodei added that his experience operating within highly regulated pharmaceutical systems aligns with Anthropic’s emphasis on safety, deployment discipline, and controlled release of advanced models.
Founded as a public-benefit corporation, Anthropic’s governance structure, anchored by the Long-Term Benefit Trust, is designed to insulate key decisions as it scales its frontier AI systems.
The appointment comes as AI companies increasingly court domain experts from regulated industries such as healthcare, finance, and defense to guide the deployment of high-impact systems, particularly as frontier models move closer to real-world scientific and clinical applications.
Narasimhan said AI is already reshaping biomedical research and drug discovery. “In healthcare, AI is accelerating solutions to some of the hardest scientific challenges from understanding disease biology to designing better medicines,” he said. “Anthropic is setting a standard for how AI should be developed to benefit humanity.”
The development comes a week after the San Francisco-based AI major appointed Amlan Mohanty to lead its policy initiatives in India.
In January, Anthropic appointed Irina Ghose — former MD of Microsoft India — as its managing director for India.
